Queering UNM’s history: 50 years of intersectional resistance on UNM campus

• In Event: Universities Confronting their Past: The University of New Mexico Addressing Complex Legacies of Harm

Proposal

The University of New Mexico is home to one of the oldest chartered LGBTQIA student organizations on a college campus. Officially chartered in 1971, its origin was two years prior. 1969 is a turning point in Trans and Queer history in the United States. It is the year of the Stonewall Rebellion in New York and in New Mexico it was the start for Trans and Queer organizing at the University of New Mexico. Juniper Club was created in response to an incident of anti-blackness on campus. Lionel Williams, a Black teaching assistant, taught a poem, love lust, in an English class. One of the student’s father was outraged by this and thus started a chain of events that led to students holding teach-ins in the Student Union Building, state funding being threatened, and students organizing, creating coalitions that represented their identities.
One of these groups, Juniper Club, was created as a safe haven for Gay and Lesbian students on campus. Throughout the 70s, Juniper Club faced persecution from conservative student senators, hate mail in the school newspaper, The Daily Lobo, and had courageous students who stood in their affirmed identities to provide, safe, comprehensive services for Queer and Questioning students. In their original charter, Juniper outlines the need for counseling services that are tailored to the coming out process as well as facing internalized homophobia.
The 1980s saw Juniper Club change its name to become not only more inclusive, but to be bold in its identity, renaming itself the Gay Lesbian Student Union (GLSU). The GLSU would shed light on the AIDS epidemic and continue to fight for LGBTQIA visibility on UNM campus. This legacy would persist into the new millennia, setting the stage for the creation of the UNM LGBTQ Resource Center.
The LGBTQ Resource Center is the culmination of students fighting for Trans and Queer students to not just be accepted, but to thrive at UNM. Founded in 2010, the LGBTQ Resource Center serves students, staff, and faculty.
Utilizing archives from the Daily Lobo, the UNM LGBTQ Resource Center, and Juniper Reimagined, I have constructed a history of Queer activism on UNM campus. To gain a better understanding of queer life on campus prior to the love lust controversy, I have used Ben Duncan’s biography, “Same Language.” This biography is the earliest documentation of Queer life at UNM. Duncan writes of a network of LGBTQ folks at UNM, including references of known Queer staff and faculty. These works combined will demonstrate the radical presence LGBTQIA folks have had on this campus for over 50 years.

Author

• Frankie Flores, University of New Mexico